Spotsylvania Courthouse Essay

On May 7, 1864 Ulysses S. Grant orders the army to of potomac to head toward Spotsylvania Court House. Spotsylvania Courthouse is a small town off a trail on the way to Richmond, Virginia. Grant was attempting to cut off Robert E. Lee’s army that was heading for Richmond or at least get Lee’s army into an open field where the Unions would be able to take advantage with their superior numbers. It was Conf. general J.E.B. Stuart’s job to stop the federals from getting to Spotsylvania. For a couple of days, a part of Stuart’s cavalry, led by Fitz Lee, battled union horseman for the control of the Brock Road. The Brock Road was the most direct route between the wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House. Lee was forced to relinquish his position near
Todd’s Tavern. He then withdrew to a higher ground known as Laurel Hill on May 8. That would be the last defensible position on this side of Spotsylvania. If the Conf. would lose Laurel Hill that would end in them losing Spotsylvania.
Fortunately for Stuart and Fitz Lee, help was near at hand. General Richard Anderson, now in command of James Longstreet’s first corps, had marched for Spotsylvania over night and by morning of May 8, his troops were nearing Laurel Hill. Believing Spotsylvania to be within his grasp, Union Maj. Gen. Gouveneur K. Warren advanced his fifth corps up Laurel where they found Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson and Longstreet’s corps opposing them. Warren’s attempts to drive the Conf. back failed and the opposing sides began to settle.

During this time Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, the union sixth corps commander was shot dead, making him the highest ranking Union officer to be killed during the war. Grant tried to break the deadlock in Spotsylvania over the next 2 days. On May 9, Grant sent a portion of Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s second corps across the the Po river attempting to find Lee’s left flank.Lee noticed what Hancock was doing so he shifted 2 divisions to counter the federals at Block House Bridge, Which forced the yankees back across the river. Grant spent the next day probing Lee’s line for weaknesses and nearly found one when a young colonel named Emory Upton breached the Conf. line for a short period of time with a
quick-moving, tightly packed column of regiments. Even though upton’s assault was indecisive, it gave Grant an idea. By May 12, the Conf. had established a long line of earthworks, which included a huge half-mile bulge called a muleshoe salient. Grant based his plan on Upton’s assault, because of that, Grant lost 20,000 men of the second corps opposite of the tip of the Muleshoe. Lee noted the federal movement, but mistakenly believing grant that was ready to withdraw, removed his artillery from the salient. So, when Hancock’s men advanced in the morning of May 12, they easily broke through the Conf. line that was without artillery. After the initial breakthrough however, Lee moved reinforcements into the salient just as Grant moved men upon the Conf. works. Fighting developed into a point-blank slugfest- amid a torrential downpour-which lasted 22 hrs and claimed approximately 17,000 lives. The stubborn stand by conf. Troops at the Bloody Angle, which gave Lee the time he needed to construct a new line of earthworkers across the base of the Muleshoe Salient. The army of potomac, tired from its attacks on the angle, did not test the new line-at least, not right away. Instead Grant positioned his army to the left. When union troops finally advanced onto his position on May 18, they were met by the massed artillery fire and easily repulsed. Stymied but undaunted, Grant called off the attack and resumed moving his troops to the left. The campaign of maneuver would continue, leaving no clear winner.